In fact, with its annual Sunday Series, the Jazz Society has proved for the last decade and a half that just because the holidays are over doesn't mean the fun has to stop. The Sunday Series is comprised of weekly Sunday afternoon concerts featuring a variety of jazz music performed by local and national artists. This year, the 16th annual series runs from Jan. 4 through March 28 and will be held at the Palm Room at the Hyatt Sainte Claire in downtown San Jose. (See performance schedule on the last page of Steppin' Out.)

"It was started by the Jazz Society as a way that people could get away from watching Sunday football [in January]," says Steve Saperstein, general director of the San Jose Jazz Society. "It was something where people really wanted to get together on Sunday, you know, like a rainy Sunday afternoon. This was 16 years ago, and the people that were here [with the jazz society] at the time decided they would put together a small group of local musicians and just have them perform once every Sunday over a period of three months and charge very little for admission."

Luring local football watchers away this particular season may be a cinch, but in any case, every year, the Sunday Series guarantees Bay Area football fans Sunday afternoons that they are sure to enjoy.

"What we do is we try to start the season off with some really well-known artists," says Saperstein. "Like we have Kim Nalley starting off on Jan. 4, and she's become one of the most favorite female vocalists in the Bay Area." Saperstein notes that Nalley and her husband recently purchased a legendary North Beach jazz club in San Francisco, saving it from closing. "Not only is she a great vocalist, but she's helping us keep jazz alive in the Bay Area by owning a jazz spot."

Summing up the series' January schedule, Saperstein continues, "Jamie Davis has a wonderful voice, and Dennis Wilson is just a great trombone player. Taylor Eigsti is one of the child prodigies of the Bay Area. He has a huge following. His music is very targeted towards a very modern sound, which is great. He's very inventive. His last album, Resonance, is just wonderful, very well received, too. Taylor's album was No. 3 on the jazz charts for a couple weeks. So he's doing a great job. We have Primary Colors the last week of January. Nate Pruitt is a vocalist who has been associated with us for a long time. He's done a lot of work with our education program and our in-school jazz courses."

A major aspect of the San Jose Jazz Society's mission is presenting education programs for young people, which includes everything from a youth jazz orchestra (which will perform at the Sunday Series) to introducing schoolchildren, grades 3­8, to jazz music. Local musicians visit classrooms to discuss the roots of jazz and to work interactively with the students. Primary Colors' vocalist Pruitt has been very active with this program, including recording a jazz song about healthy lifestyles, "Don't Bet Your Life on a Cigarette," that each child receives on a CD to take home at the end of the presentation.

The Jazz Society's major fundraiser for its education programs is its most well-known annual event, the Comcast San Jose Jazz Festival, held every year in August. But the focus on education is definitely year-round, and the Sunday Series is no exception.

Before her performance on Feb. 22, pianist Rebeca Mauleón will offer a special lesson in Latin jazz for youth in a program presented in cooperation with the Mexican Heritage Corporation. "Rebeca is one of the foremost Latin music educators. She's very well-known, she has written books, she's a great piano player and she understands Latin and salsa extremely well from the point of view of the origin of all the percussion instruments, which are just fascinating unto itself, to the actual rhythms," says Saperstein. "So we're going to get 50 kids there from various locations, it's going to be free, we're going to bring them in and hopefully inspire them to get interested in the Latin side of jazz, which we think is something we really want to get behind."

Another Sunday Series performer, Michele Weir, will serve as a clinician at the Jazz Society's youth festival, which will be held at San José State University during the week before her concert on March 28. At the festival, regional groups will perform in competition and attend vocal and instrumental classes taught by local and national musicians.

The Sunday Series itself offers a fun musical education for all listeners with its unique blend of performers, some with decidedly different takes on jazz. Saperstein says he hopes that audiences take away "the pleasure of hearing jazz in its--what I believe--is in its highest form. Also a couple of the people we have are what I would call stretchers in that we want them [audiences] to experience jazz but we also want them to experience perhaps some of the things that are going on that are pushing the art form forward, too."

He adds: "We don't apply it in large doses, but there are a couple of people who just really express some new, modern ideas. So we combine the traditional with the modern and really try to give a very well-rounded jazz experience for everyone who comes, from blues-oriented singing to really cool stuff like Stefon Harris or Dave Ellis, who really are right now near the top of the heap in what's going on in more modern jazz. So a really nice balance between tradition and more modern stuff is one of the things that I want people to go away with and say 'I heard it all.' "

Series sponsors are Il Fornaio, Acton Construction Inc. and Silicon Valley Community Newspapers.

The San Jose Jazz Society presents its 16th annual Sunday Series Jan. 4 through March 28. All concerts will be held at 3 p.m. in the Palm Room at the Hyatt Sainte Claire, Market and San Carlos streets, San Jose. Ticket subscriptions are available for $110 (Jazz Society members) and $160 (nonmembers). For more information or to order tickets, call 408.288.7557 or see www.sanjosejazz.org.

JAN. 4: Vocalist Kim Nalley. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

JAN. 11: Trombonist Dennis Wilson and singer Jamie Davis. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

JAN. 18: Pianist Taylor Eigsti. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

JAN. 25: Primary Colors, featuring guitarist Rick Vandivier and vocalist Nate Pruitt. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

FEB. 1: San Jose Youth Jazz Orchestra, directed by David Gregoric. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

FEB. 8: Modesto Briseño Quintet, featuring saxophonist Andrew Speight. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

FEB. 15: Vibraphonist and percussionist Stefon Harris. Tickets $25 members/$30 nonmembers.

FEB. 22: Rebeca Mauleón Quartet. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

FEB. 29: Organist Joey DeFrancesco Trio. Tickets $25 members/$30 nonmembers.

MARCH 7: Calvin Keys Trio featuring Joyce Randolph. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

MARCH 14: Wayne Wallace Quintet. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

MARCH 21: Dave Ellis Ensemble. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.

MARCH 28: Michele Weir and Bruce Forman. Tickets $10 members/$15 nonmembers.